Thing 2: Blogging

I have created a handful of educational blogs in the past, unfortunately, only to use them once or twice and then never again. A positive in that is that I'm somewhat familiar with the blogging process, but the negative is that my familiarity is vague and not what I wish it would be at this point. I've been to a handful of professional development courses where we are guided in setting up a blog. It is such a great concept, and I get so excited about all of the potential ways I could use it as a teaching tool. But, reality quickly sets in and I slowly forget it about using it as the many other duties of being a teacher take over. This time, though, I'm committed to really giving it an honest and fair try. I'm really looking forward to getting comfortable with the concept of a blog and introducing it to my students. I would like to get to the point where I can assign homework and other activities that my students would complete via the blog on their home computers. I think it's so important that we start teaching kids how to interact with each other over the web and through safe sites like class blogs, because they are growing up in a world that day by day is becoming more technology driven. Why not start preparing them at a young age for something that is inevitable?

While creating my blog, I took the free advice and picked an easy to remember name that went with what type of blog this was; 16 things. I picked a template I liked and got familiar with the settings and security options. I did comment on one person's blog, that completed the 16 things in the same course during a previous semester, about how much I enjoyed viewing it. It helped get me started in the right direction. I'm looking forward to seeing what my other classmates come up with, so we can offer ideas and learn from one another.

Ready, set... blog on! :)